Your day revolves around coffee, emails, running various errands… a whole bunch of stuff that doesn’t make the hottest photo.

Especially when you’re on your 5th cup of coffee and look a little more Cruella than Cinderella.

No one wants to see that shit.

But you want to get your brand on Instagram. You want to make an impact on what’s probably the hottest social media platform right now.

So, what do you do?

How DO you rock the ‘Gram without an ounce of visual content?

Well, let’s see, shall we?

Instagram is rapidly becoming THE content marketing frontier for a growing number of enterprise-grade companies.

Bigwigs like IBM, Cisco, Adobe, Salesforce and Oracle have a combined Instagram following of over 1 million. Not too shabby.

How can a company without much visual content approach Instagram marketing? Is it really possible?

There’s one thing you need to remember: even “boring” companies can generate hype with content that goes beyond your generic blog or Facebook post.

It’s all about using your noggin.

Don’t Be a Square, Squiggle Outside the Lines

Think about Instagram as your opportunity to get creative. It’s your opportunity to get the upper hand on competitors who such at thinking outside of the box.

Chances are that a large portion of your competitors stick to more conservative content marketing strategies. It’s a smart move for you to strike out and do something different.

Your workplace might be totally unglamorous. Your products might not exactly be what you’d call “visually appealing”. Your services might be less than exciting to look at. ^^ Don’t let any of that shit get in your way.

You could be approaching Instagram from a totally different perspective.

For example, you could post a few puns or jokes related to your industry. Those’ll pair well with a few unflattering pictures.

You could also post a totally uninteresting pic and pair it with a caption that is the total antithesis of what your audience is looking at. Some tongue-in-cheek humour goes a long way into capturing a viewer’s attention.

Keep it simple but try to be different. You’ll be amazed at the results you might generate.

Engagement, Not Flashiness, Is the Key

Too many people hop on the Instawagon with the aim of competing with top ranking brands and influencers.

They envision creating profiles of awe-inspiring photographs of sunsets and cityscapes that’ll capture the hearts of millions.

Reality check. You’re just making your life difficult if you take that approach. There’s so much of that kinda stuff out there already.

You need to aim your content at a small pool of Instagrammers who fit in with your customer personas. Give them what they want to see. A simple infographic about your industry might go a lot further than a picture of the sunset over your neighbour’s trees.

You probably won’t attract a million likes but in the end, that’s not actually what you’e after. What you really want is a direct message from a few potential clients.

Leverage Your Existing Audience

Audiences love to get involved.

They love it even more if there’s some kind of reward involved. It doesn’t have to be a huge reward. Just something to show you appreciate your current customers. A discount coupon or a small product giveaway.

It won’t hurt you to give away something simple every now and again. Just be smart about it.

Use your other social channels to ask your existing audience to engage with you on Instagram. Reward the “top engagers”.

Selfie challenges and hashtag challenges work really well too.

Make it interesting. Make it worth their while. You’ll see your engagements soar.

Reach Out to Influencers

B2B influencer marketing is a seriously smart way to give your following a big old boost right away.

Your industry might not be filled to the brim with visually impressive content BUT you’ll probably find a micro-influencer or two who are related to your niche. Get them to post some content on their account and linking it to yours.

These people have very real fandoms. So when your links are exposed to them, they’re bound to show an interest simply because the influencer has.

Another great strategy is to host an Instagram takeover. Invite an influencer to take over your account for a day (or a week). They’ll post some images and update your stories to attract a whole ton of new followers.

Beware: don’t expect an influencer to work for “free”. You’ll need to work out some kind of sponsorship arrangement.